Film at 11

With The Newsroom (pictured) beginning its second season on HBO, there will be much talk about the show’s unique approach to its subject, the working newsroom of a national cable news broadcast. (Aaron Sorkin’s show takes real news events of the recent past and imagines how his high-minded characters would have presented them.)

Still, despite the ACN team’s lofty intentions and high-tech gear, their newsroom is like pretty much every other TV newsroom in film and TV history, one where wrestling with issues (often involving interference from the corporate brass) shares the spotlight with office romance.

Sorkin’s cutting-edge dramedy follows a venerable tradition of fictional TV newsrooms where well-intentioned writers, producers, and anchors demonstrate that the rush of getting a great scoop really gets those hormones racing. Here, then, are 10 TV news operations, as seen in movies and other TV shows, that set the test pattern for The Newsroom.